


Doctor's Orders

by Donotquestionme



Series: Futakuchi GCBC [2]
Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: AU, Futakuchi GCBC, Gen, Lego Monsterverse AU, lego monsterverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:39:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donotquestionme/pseuds/Donotquestionme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of one shots focusing around GCBC's childhood physictian, Ian MacGillicuddy.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Country Doctor

Ian McGillicuddy was an very average man. He was tall, but not abnormally so. His eyes were brown, as was his hair. He had a warm smile and a pleasant disposition.

A doctor, by profession, he ran a very small office in the country, only three employees, including himself. It was quiet and quaint, which suited him fine. He didn't make an inordinate amount of money, but it didn't bother him. He never felt it was right to join any profession simply for the paycheck. He was a doctor because he wanted to help people. So that's exactly what he did. And, though he didn't have a large number of clients, he felt close to each of them.

At thirty five years old, he was unmarried and had no plans to change that. He'd never had any interest in romance. It all seemed like a bit of a hassle, if he were being completely honest. As the middle child of five siblings, he wasn't wanting for family. His patients were like family to him as well.

Today was a very average day. So far he'd had a stuffy nose, a set of booster shots, and a few scheduled checkups. He flipped through the paperwork for the next patient on his schedule. It was a child, only three according the form. This was their first visit, but it didn't seem as though they'd attached any paperwork for previous physicians. Dr.McGillicuddy flipped through the forms until a small symbol, carefully scrawled on the bottom right corner of the last sheet of paper, caught his eye.

"μ"

Dr.McGilicuddy sighed. It was _not_ going to be an average day.

It was the lowercase form of the Greek letter "Mu". The uppercase form looking like the English letter "M". He had thought that was rather clever, coming up with it. It was a code.

 It stood for "Monster".

A secret code. Well, less of a secret code as a secret symbol. The whole thing was laughable really. The very idea that he of all people would be using any sort of secret, covert code on his forms was just nonsense. And yet, here they were.

There was another side to Dr.McGillicuddy's practice that wasn't so average. He was the only doctor in the whole area, or _anywhere_ that he knew of to be honest, that treated monsters. He had never planned to, starting his office. In fact, if someone had come up to him just as he graduated medical school and told him that one day he'd be running a covert, underground medical service for monsters, breaking God knew how many federal laws, why he'd have laughed right in their face.

And yet...here they were.

He'd barely known about the existence of monsters back when it all began. This was before all the big anti-monster media campaigns had really started. Until one day a couple had come to him, one he'd had as patients already, Julia and Henry Williams, all shifty and nervous and, most importantly, with a new baby. Ian had known Julia had not been pregnant.  They had told him they didn't know what to do, that he was the only person they thought they might be able to trust, that they had nowhere else to turn. Dr. McGillicuddy had been utterly confused. When he asked for them to explain, they'd pulled the swaddling cloth away from the baby's face. He had understood instantly.

 A tiny baby girl stared back at him with wide, blue eyes, her skin a warm brown with round white spots dotting her face and arms. Small nubs of horns poked out of her upper forehead, just above the hairline and her legs were like that of a goat, ending in cloven hooves, but the fur was spotted like a young deer. A small tuft of fur formed her tail.

A faun. A fawn faun, apparently. It rattled his brain. The couple said they'd found her on their doorstep, as clichéd as that was. They'd named her Rosalyn. Rosie. He hadn't known much of anything about mythology or monsters, except that he was supposed to report any on sight, but looking at this tiny, frail child and her terrified adopted parents with no other place to go...He couldn't turn them away or turn them in.

From there, word spread in hushed tones that there was a doctor who treated monsters and one by one they showed up at his door. He'd come up with the symbol idea pretty early on. It was a covert way to let him know the nature of their visit without revealing any secrets, should the rumors about him be false.

Foundlings , or monster children either abandoned by or separated from their parents and adopted by human parents, like Rosie, as Dr. McGillicuddy would later learn, were actually less uncommon than one would think. Monster were hunted down mercilessly by Lord Business's forces. They often had little time to escape once the "Super Secret Police" got wind of them. Sometimes all they could manage was ensuring their children's escape. Human looking monsters were even sometimes given to orphanages in hopes of them finding a better life. More than one of Dr.McGillicuddy's patients had been monsters that had been raised as humans, never knowing about their heritage until strange traits started appearing with maturity.

Other common patients were those who had been born human and somehow become monsters later in life, like some werewolves and vampires. Much more rarely, however, were monsters that had been born and raised knowing what they were.

These people had no other health care professionals to turn to, so he had had to become part doctor, part dentist, part dermatologist, and sometimes part veterinarian. Doing everything from pulling rotten fangs from tiny nagas, to prescribing flea treatments for new werewolves, to inspecting hooves and horns on satyrs and fauns.

There were no official books on monsters or their health, aside from what little you could gather from mythology, so he had to learn everything himself. Every patient brought on a new set of challenges, but also a new fount of knowledge. It was terribly interesting, if nothing else. Collecting scraps of information here and there, sifting through old textbooks. He kept tidy and well organized notes on everything he learned. Most monsters he dealt with knew as little about their own biology as Dr.McGillicuddy did, but every once in a while he'd get a patient that had been born and raised a monster. They generally had much more reliable information about their species.  He was always sure to get as much from them as possible. One werewolf family he'd gotten had been a godsend.

He'd found, on the whole, that most monsters, even those born into monster households, tended to know very little about other monsters besides themselves. If there really was an enormous, secret and terrible monster society living in the shadows, it was either far too small to pose any threat to humanity, or self sufficient and secretive enough to not seek outside help. If they did exist, they seemed to have little to no concern for people like his patients, the outcasts and stragglers, clueless and helpless.  Seemed downright rude of them to leave these poor people out to dry like that, in his honest opinion. If they were really trying to help the monster cause, why didn't they look after their own kind? Why did these people instead line up at his door, confused and terrified? If you had anything to say about how the world should be run, then you should be out there in the dredges doing something, helping people,  not holing up in some secret base while the common rabble suffered. But, he supposed it was really none of his business telling anybody, especially those who may not even actually exist, how to live their lives. After all, he wasn't the one being hunted down just for being born.

He peeked out through the blinds of his office into the waiting room, trying to get a glimpse of what he was up against. He spotted them instantly. For one, they were the only people in the waiting room whose faces he did not immediately recognize and, at this point, he could tell new monster parents a mile away.  A couple with a clearly adopted child, constantly on lookout, in case they had to bolt, still afraid that this was a trap. Not allowing the child to wander about the room, instead holding them closely and protectively.  The child himself was a small thing, and quiet. No crying or babbling. He seemed perfectly content staying in his mother's arms, just surveying his surroundings. Or, that is, Dr.MacGillicuddy assumed that's what he was doing. It was hard to tell exactly given that the child was wearing a small pair of tinted sunglasses that hid his eyes. He also wore a cap pulled down over his head and ears that the mother kept checking ad adjusting.

Oh lord, he hoped it wasn't a Medusa. Or rather a...oh blast what were they called? A gorgon? Yes that was it. In any case, he hoped it wasn't one of those. He didn't much care to be turned to stone.

He let the blind go and turned to his physician's assistant.

"I'll take this next one personally."  He said.

She nodded understandingly. He tried to keep his PA and secretary out of the more unusual side of his practice as much as possible. The less they knew, the better. He wanted them to have at least some shred of plausible deniability should things...go sour. Though, in all honesty, it probably wouldn't help them much. Business's forces weren't known for discretion. Still, it made him feel a little better about how much danger he was putting them in.

With a deep, steadying breath, he opened the waiting room door, and called the couple and their child back.

The couple exchanged a quick, worried glance before rising from their chairs and following Dr. MacGillicuddy into the examination room.

He closed the door behind them and they stood in silence for a moment.

"So..." Dr. MacGillicuddy said. "What....brings you here today?"

Another glance.

"We heard about you from...from a friend." The man replied.

"Did you now?" Dr. MacGillicuddy said, trying to smile despite his discomfort. "You wouldn't be the first to do so."

God he hated this part. The awkward game of chicken he had to play with new patients. Neither party wanting to give anything up, in case it was a trap. The whole thing felt like something out of a bad spy movie. Speaking in some sort of code. Him of all people.

"May I...take a look?" He asked tentatively.

The woman bit her lip and took a deep breath. With shaking hands, she removed the cap from the child's head.

At this point Dr. MacGillicuddy had a pretty good poker face when it came to seeing monsters for the first time, but this one barely required it. The only acting required was hiding his relief that there was hair beneath the cap and not snakes or whatever it was that Medusas had instead of hair.

 _Gorgons._ He reminded himself mentally.

"Don't worry." He assured the couple, who were watching him closely, gauging his response. "You've come to a safe place."

The child was normal looking enough, really. The only abnormality seemed to be his ears, which were decidedly more pointed than a human's. That explained the hat, but not the...

Dr. MacGillicuddy lost his train of thought as he noticed something peculiar. Was the boy's hair...moving?

Coils of hair seemed to be...unfurling and stretching out, like tiny ferns from the back of his head.

"Uh..." Dr. MacGillicuddy said, at a bit of a loss for words. Hair controlling monsters was not something he'd run across so far. 

The woman turned the boy around so the back of his head was facing Dr. MacGillicuddy, who had to use all of his practice and willpower not to jump out of his skin at what he saw.

_TEETH._

Teeth and eyes, to be precise, sprouting out of the hair on the back of the child's head. And those _teeth!_ Each tooth must have been the size of Dr. MaGillicuddy's thumb, interlocking with the others around it like those of an alligator.

The eyes were wide and an unnaturally bright green. It looked like it was...smiling at him?   He gave a nervous smile back. At that, the face beamed, jaws opening to show full mouth and throat behind the row of teeth.  Locks of hair reached out toward him like tiny arms.

"Ah! Ah!" It-- _he_ babbled happily.

"Do you...do you know what he... _they?..._ are?" Dr.Macgillicuddy asked, not taking his eyes off the child. "Er--species, I mean." he clarified.

"We don't know." The man said. "We found them under our porch a week ago.  Dunno where they came from or what they are."

"We were hoping maybe you could tell _us._ " The woman added.

"Well, I'm afraid I've never seen anything like this before." Dr. MacGillicuddy said, shaking his head. "May I...?" he asked, gesturing to the examination table.

The woman seemed reluctant to let the child out of her arms. She gave the front facing face a small kiss on the forehead and set him (them?) down on the table. She took the sunglasses off of the front facing face's eyes.

Dr.MacGillicuddy cautiously looked at the boy's eyes, still not 100% sure he wasn't going to be turned to stone (it never hurt to be careful). They were also bright green, though not quite so unnaturally bright as the back face.  Regardless, he could understand why the parents covered them. The pupils were pointed and thin, like those of a cat or a crocodile. The boy did not speak. He just sat there, barely moving, and staring, his face set like a statue. Dr. MacGillicuddy had  seen eyes like it before, but never had he seen a child so young with a stare so _intense._ He felt...intimidated. 

Dr. MacGillicuddy got out his otoscope and inspected the front face's eyes and ears. They seemed healthy enough. The boy's pupils contracted as the light was shone in them, thinning in much the way a cat's would.  They a bit glinted as the light moved back and forth.

"Their eye's glow in the dark, when you shine a torch on them." The father mentioned. "Like a...a dog or some such thing."

"Do they, now?" Dr. MacGillicuddy mused. He flipped off the light and shone the light again. Sure enough, the boy's eyes shone brightly, like glowing, green disks of light.  He turned the lights back on again.

"That's not too uncommon." He explained. "He's most likely got a layer reflective substance behind the eye called the  tapetum lucidum, like many animals and monsters do. It reflects light back into the eye to help them see at night. I'd wager his night vision is a good deal better than ours. It's nothing to worry about. If anything, it's a positive thing. The sunglasses shouldn't impede his vision at all, even when it's a dark out. There a plenty of medical reasons out there that would require one to wear sunglasses. I'll put something on his records."

Falsifying medical records. This is what his life entailed now. Him of all people.  It was for the best, he supposed. He grabbed a tongue depressor out of the cabinet.

" Say 'ah'." He said.

The boy made no motions toward complying. He continued to star intently, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Um..." Dr. MacGillicuddy said, still feeling oddly intimidated by this small child.

"Open your mouth, sweetie." The woman said. "He just wants to make sure you're healthy."

The boy broke his stare to look to his mother, then his gaze slowly went back to the doctor. There was no change in his facial expression, but he opened his mouth as asked to let Dr. MacGillicuddy inspect his mouth.

The child's teeth were sharp, though nowhere near as sharp, nor as large, as the back face's. Seemed to be the same basic shape and number as human teeth.

"Bite down" Dr. MacGillicuddy said.

The boy complied, biting down the tongue depressor.

"That's good. You can let go." Dr. MacGillicuddy.

The boy again complied.

"Teeth look fine, if a little sharp." Dr. MacGillicuddy said, throwing away the tongue depressor. "I wouldn't imagine they'd be much of a proble...uh..." he trailed off.

A lock of hair had stretched all the way from the back of the boy's head and had looped itself gently around Dr. MacGillicuddy's hand.

"Ah! Ah!" Came a gleeful voice.

Dr. MacGillicuddy let out a small chuckle despite himself.

"Yes, I haven't forgotten about you, believe me." He said, then walked around to the other side of the examination table to get a look at the other face.

"He's the friendlier of the two, we've found." The mother said.

"They're different, then? Is it one mind with two faces or two minds?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked, shining the otoscope into the back face's wide eyes.

"We don't quite know, to be honest." she replied. "Sometimes they seem so separate, but other times not so much. They refer to themselves in the plural. Sometimes they speak at the same time. But then other times they'll refer to the other one specifically.

"I suppose only time will tell. They do speak, then?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked.

"As much as any child their age can be expected to." The man shrugged.

"The back one more than the front." The woman added.

"Fascinating..." Dr. MacGillicuddy breathed. He grabbed another tongue depressor from the cabinet.

"Those are some pretty neat chompers there, kiddo. Mind if I take a look?"  He asked "Say 'ah'"

The boy's toothy maw opened wide, _very wide,_ given the boy's small size _._ Dr. MacGillicuddy  could have nearly fit his whole hand inside. Probably not something to test, looking at those teeth.  He used the tongue depressor to get a better look at them.  The child giggled as he did so.

Each tooth was much larger than that of a human child, and there were nearly twice as many of them. They were all more or less identical and interlocked almost perfectly with one another. They reminded Dr. MacGillicuddy a good deal of piranha teeth, though a bit thicker.

"Bite down for me?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked.

Just as the words had left his mouth, the child's jaws snapped shut almost instantaneously, snapping the tongue depressor in half. The shock of it made Dr. MacGillicuddy let go of the wooden instrument and the half outside of the boy's mouth went flying across the room.

Dr. MacGillicuddy stifled a gasp.

"Wow." he said. He made a mental note not to put anything he wanted to keep anywhere near those jaws.

He turned to see the boy's parents looking terrified, as if he was going to become angry or kick them out. The child seemed to realize he'd done something wrong. He looked up at Dr. MacGillicuddy with sad eyes that were starting to well with tears.

"Haha." Dr. MacGillicuddy laughed, still a bit startled. "It's nothing. It's just a tongue depressor. It's fine."

The couple seemed to relax and he smiled. This was the reason he did this job, as dangerous as it was. To see a scared couple finally feel like they weren't all alone. To make sure a child who had no other place to go was healthy and happy.

And that was worth the danger, he felt.

"So, little guy." He said. "Do you have a name?"

 

 


	2. Binomial Nomenclature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. MacGillicuddy stays up late working.  
> Again.

Dr. Ian MacGillicuddy was up late.

Again.

It wasn't uncommon for him to stay in his office until all hours of the night, working. When a certain puzzle really piqued his interest, it was nearly impossible for him to put it down.

The puzzle facing him tonight was one he often faced, determining the species of a new patient.  Nearly all of his patients needed at least some help in determining just what it was they or their family member _were._ It was one of the most important pieces of information to gather about a new client.  Knowing species might reveal weaknesses, strengths, what should or shouldn't be expected, et cetera.

The case he was working on now was proving to be particularly tough to crack. The patient in question was the young Copp boy(boys?). He'd seen them a few days prior and was still trying to figure out exactly what on Earth they were. It was certainly nothing he'd ever seen before and his research was so far proving fruitless.

They were some kind of two-faced monster, with one face on either side of the head.  One face was mostly human, except for pointed ears and cat-like eyes. The other...not so much.  Further examination had shown that they had two sets of full respiratory systems, including two sets of lungs, the one leading to the back face smaller than the other one. They also had two sets of vocal chords. This allowed them to breathe and speak at the same time.  Some basic scans had shown them to have a sort of fused esophagus that forked to lead to both mouths, but fed into the same stomach.  The parents, Mr. and Mrs. Copp had explained that the back face ate all of the food for both of them.

Dr. MacGillicuddy rubbed at his eyes and took another sip of his tea (He wasn't one for coffee. It made him too jittery). He flipped through one of his many books of monsters for what seemed like the hundredth time. There was still nothing on two faced monsters. Two _headed_ monsters, on the other hand, were easy to find. It seemed like every branch of mythology had its two headed monsters. But two faced? Nothing. Plenty of monsters had pointed ears and teeth. Scads of them. That was no help either. He must be missing something...

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

Wait.

Maybe that was it!  The boys could control their hair! Or, at least, the back face could. That was the only one of their characteristics he hadn't tried looking for yet.

After nearly two hours of scouring every book he had, he finally ran across the only instance of hair controlling monsters he could find.

_-Futakuchi-onna  "two-mouthed woman"_

_A Japanese monster or "yōkai"  depicted as a young woman having two mouths, one on the normal face, and one on the back of the head, beneath the hair. Known for their ability to control hair and their enormous appetites. "_

It went on to list some examples of Futakuchi-onna in legends and mythology.

Hmm. It was the closest thing to their description he'd found so far, but some things still didn't line up. First and foremost, the boys were...well... _boys._ As far as this seemed to imply, these monsters were only female. Japanese females at that. They boys hardly looked Japanese, though he supposed "hardly looked" was a fairly poor way of judging anyone's background. Secondly, the back one of their faces had eyes and small nostrils as well as a mouth. And that one wasn't beneath the hair, but rather sprouting right from it.  Their parents hadn't mentioned anything about an abnormal appetite, either.

Still, it was the only example he could find for hair controlling monsters or anything resembling two faced monsters, so it was better than nothing.  He'd give the Copps a call in the morning. Right now, he needed to go to bed...

...Right after one more look through his books.

Just in case.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short chapter laying the seeds for other things later. (Or is it??) The cops are a bit of a mystery. They don't fit neatly into any category. I wonder why that could be. Certainly not anything that would be talked about later no sir.


	3. A Test of Patients

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3rd and final chapter of this fic, set 15 years after the first two.

Dr. MacGillicuddy dragged his hand down his face in exasperation . His hands traced the slowly deepening wrinkles that had formed on his face.  They were the only real evidence of his aging.

He was fifty years old as of a few months prior, as hard as that was to believe. He barely looked it. He'd always had a bit of a boyish face and he kept himself in good shape. He figured it was only right to do so, being that he was a doctor. You could hardly tell anyone else how to be healthy if you kept yourself in poor shape. That was his opinion, anyway.  His hair had only just begun to gray, but if anything was causing the appearance of those grey strands, it was the patient, or rather, _patients,_ that was currently sitting on the examination table in front of him.

He rubbed at his eyes.

"Remind me again what it is you want me to do." he said, trying not to groan.

Bad Cop shifted awkwardly.  He was one of the Copp "brothers", two of his oldest patients(as in, how long they'd been going to him, not physical age). They been calling themselves "Good" and "Bad" for as long as he'd known them and no one seemed to be able to convince them out of it. Somewhere along the line they'd changed it to "Good Cop" and "Bad Cop", either as reference to their adoptive parents' last name or just to make a bad pun, Dr. MacGillicuddy was never quite sure.

"We need you to fill out this physical form and confirm we're healthy enough to join the police academy in Bricksburg." Bad Cop said, obviously trying his best at a pleading smile. It looked out of place on his face.  He wasn't wearing his usually ever present sunglasses, so Dr. MacGillicuddy could see his eyes, which made him look even more uncomfortable.

"And why on _Earth_ are you trying to enroll in the police academy?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked, sounding more tired than truly annoyed.

"We need a job." Good Cop said.

"But why _this_ job?" Dr. MacGillicuddy groaned. "You'd be putting yourselves in an inordinate and unnecessary amount of danger."

"We're always in danger!" Bad Cop protested. "At least we'd have some control over it this way."

Dr. MacGillicuddy sighed.

"Listen." He said. "I know...you want to be follow in your parents' footsteps. To live up to the family name, so to speak. But...boys, this is _suicide_."

"Not if we're careful!" Good Cop said.

"We're going into the motorcycle force." Bad Cop added. "We could wear a helmet all the time, so no one would see our ears."

"There are others jobs where you can wear a hat. Most jobs, really." Dr. MacGillicuddy pressed fingers into his forehead. "Ones that don't involve being a part of the force that is _literally dedicated to destroying you_."

"We wouldn't be in the Super Secret Police." Good Cop countered. "Just the normal police. The ones who protect people, not hunt monsters."

"Besides," Bad Cop continued, their sentences blending seamlessly. "We can't do a desk job. We'd be around people all day. You know we can't be under that kind of constant surveillance. We can't have an eight hour uninterrupted shift somewhere. We..."he seemed to crumple a bit, averting his gaze. "We can't go that long anymore." he finished in practically a whisper.

"If we were a police officer, we could have a bit of privacy sometimes. We could keep food with us in a cruiser. Enough to get us through the day, so we don't panic." Good Cop said.

"And if you get assigned a partner?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked. "What when you don't have that privacy? What if you get hurt on the job? That's _hardly_ impossible. They won't bring you to me, you know, they'll bring you to the hospital and no flimsy excuses about light sensitivity or skin problems will stop them from taking your glasses and helmet off! You think that the doctors will cover it up, will lie for you like I have? They won't!" 

He pressed his palm to his forehead and took a deep breath to calm himself. It wasn't like him to lose him temper.

"Alright." He said more calmly."You want a physical? Fine." he took a step towards them, arms folded. "You're underweight. Something tells me you knew that. You've got rings under your eyes bigger than Saturn's. Your BMI is way below average. Your skin and nails are unhealthy and..." He pulled lightly at a small lock of their hair, which tore free of their scalp with ease. "Your hair is falling out."

"It's hereditary." Bad Cop deadpanned.  "Besides, it's already turning grey."

"You've been starving yourselves." Dr. MacGillicuddy said, in no mood for his sarcasm or attempts to dodge the subject. " _Again._ "

The cops grimaced. Neither would look at him. "Well...what else are we supposed to do, huh?" Bad Cop said. "We don't have the money for it." he looked up again.  "That's why we're here. So we can get a job!"

"But _this_ job?" Dr. MacGillicuddy moaned. "Working right under Business's nose? This doesn't just affect you, you know. What about your parents?  How do you think it would affect them, if something happened to you?"

"We're not stupid." Bad Cop snapped. "We know they'd be the next place the police would go.  But we'd...somehow we'd convince them they didn't know, that we'd tricked them or something."

"I _meant_ they'd be devastated." Dr. MacGillicuddy said.

"They'd be b--" Bad Cop began, but cut himself off sharply, biting his lip.

"They'd be...what?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked. "Better off? Is that what this is about? About you feeling like a burden?"

"We _are_ a burden." Bad Cop said bitterly, staring at the floor.

"So...what? This is your way of fixing that?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked. "Of taking yourselves out of the picture? Putting yourselves in harm's way because you think the world would be better off without--"

"Listen, what do you want from us?!" Bad Cop spat, cutting him off.  

Dr. MacGillicuddy blinked, taken aback.

"What do I want from you?" He asked, dumbstruck. "I'm your _doctor!_ I want you to be _healthy!_ I want you to stop starving yourselves before you end up doing permanent damage to your body. I want you to stop lying to yourselves. I want you to stop pretending that you're human. You're not!"

The cops grew deathly still and Dr. MacGillicuddy instantly regretted his words.

Bad Cop's shocked expression curled into a snarl.

"You think we don't _know that?_ " He hissed. He stood from the examining table.

Dr. MacGillicuddy took an involuntary step back.

Bad Cop took a step towards him.

"Every second of every day, we are _painfully_ aware of the fact that we're not human. " He took another step forward.  He seemed so much taller than he had a few moments prior.  Dr. MacGillicuddy took another step back.

"You ask us to stop lying to ourselves? Our whole life is a lie!" He was practically yelling now. "Our parents aren't really our parents! We have to hide what we really look like! Our history, our names, our whole lives! It's all pretend! There's nothing in us but lies!"

Dr. MacGillicuddy tried to step back again, but his back ran up against the wall.  He felt like he was practically looking up at Bad Cop now. The teeth the boy show rarely showed seemed sharper than he remembered.

"And you know _why_ we pretend? Because we _have to!_ You think we don't know how dangerous slipping up could be? That's every day for us! We pretend because if we don't, _WE'LL DIE!_ "  Bad Cop clenched his fist in front of him.

He was too close.  Dr. MacGillicuddy felt trapped. He felt...afraid.

Then, a small tendril of hair curled lightly around Bad Cop's clenched fist. He blinked and looked at his hand, then unclenched it. The hair wrapped around his open hand in a few loose coils. Bad Cop's face and posture instantly softened. His shoulders slumped and his face fell in shame.  He cast his eyes to the ground and drew back. Another tendril stroked his cheek softly.  Bad Cop kept his eyes firmly on the floor.

"I'm..."he winced. "I'm sorry..." he said, voice pained. "But that's why we _need_ this job" his voice was practically a whisper. He turned away from the doctor so that Good Cop was facing him.

"We know our parents love us and we know we're their son but..."Good Cop said. He closed his eyes and took a breath. "...but sometimes it would be nice to...feel like it."

Dr. MacGillicuddy looked the boys up and down. It was hard to believe sometimes that they _weren't_ related to their parents. Bad Cop especially looked so similar to his father sometimes.

Good Cop looked Dr. MacGillicuddy in the eye. "We're never in control of our lives. There's a strong chance we never will be. We want to feel like we can give back to the world we've taken so much from. To be like our parents and help people. We need your help to do that."

Dr. MacGillicuddy was still somewhat flustered by the whole event that just transpired. He was frustrated with himself for being afraid of one of his clients. He felt like a hypocrite. If he didn't trust these people, who would? He brushed off an imaginary layer of dust from his lab coat and tried to dispel the angry flush to his cheeks.

 "And...and if I don't give it?" He said. "That's it, then. That puts an end to this whole nonsense. If I say no then this whole thing goes away. You can't get a second opinion!" he snapped, then immediately regretted it.

Good Cop's face fell. It was a low blow. How could he hold their desperate situation against them? It was thoughtless and stupid.

Stupid stupid stupid.

He ran a hand through his hair.

"God I'm...I'm sorry. I just..." He said. "If something happened to you and I had allowed it I just..."

"We heard about Rosie." Good Cop said.

Dr. MacGillicuddy's heart felt like it stopped cold for a beat.

His very first monster patient...had been captured by the Super Secret Police six months ago.  Along with her parents.

She was such a sweet girl. She'd never harm a fly. The idea that anyone could think she was some kind of menace to society was just ridiculous. She was bright and cheerful like the sunrise in spring.

But now she was gone.

Either dead or locked away in some dark, cold, room deep underground where she'd never see the sun again, or lie in the grass, or sing her wonderful songs with no words. Like those of songbirds.

He'd almost gotten out of the business right there and then, when he'd gotten the news. He thought to close up shop, skip town, and open a normal practice somewhere far far away and never have anything more to do with monsters. He spent the next week in abject terror every waking moment, sure that at any second they'd come for him as well. He'd done his part. Surely he couldn't be expected to risk his life forever.

But in the end he couldn't have done it. He could never leave his patients out to dry like that. Where would they go if he ran off to greener pastures? How could he live with himself if he abandoned them?

So things went on as they always had.

But it wasn't the same.

Dr. MacGillicuddy felt tears threatening to well in his eyes. He blinked them away. It wouldn't be professional to cry in front of a patient.

"We know you don't want that to happen to us." Good Cop continued. "But Rosie is proof that we can do everything right, to never take risks, and still get caught.  We don't want to be in the back of one of those vans one day and realize, in trying to survive, we never got the chance to live. Please. Just let us try."

It was truly a shame that Good Cop's outward appearance was so intimidating, he had a real way with words and with people.

Dr. MacGillicuddy sighed loudly and ran his hands down his face. "Fine" he relented. "I fill out the form."

The next thing he knew, he was being lifted off the ground in a flurry of hair. Thick cords of hair held him up and hugged him tightly.

"Oh thank you thank you THANK YOU!" Good Cop cried.

"Yes...you're welcome...please...put me down...it's a little...hard...to breathe." Dr. MacGillicuddy sputtered.

"Oh!" Good cop exclaimed, and promptly set the doctor back on the floor, his tendrils of hair unwinding and retreating back to their head. "Sorry. Got a little carried away."

"Also..." Bad Cop said softly. "Our ears..."

It took Dr. MacGillicuddy a moment to realize what he meant. He grimaced.

"Oh no no!" He moaned. "You're asking enough of me already! I'm not a plastic surgeon."

"It'll only be this one time, we swear we'll never ask you again!" Bad Cop said.

"Oh please don't make me, it's so grisly!" said Dr. MacGillicuddy.

"We can't wear a helmet or a hat the first week or so. Our ears would be a dead giveaway." Good Cop said. "You don't have to take very much off. Just enough so they don't raise suspicion. We heal so fast, there'll barely be any blood."

Dr. MacGillicuddy made a noise of discomfort.

"Pleaaaaaaaase." Good cop begged.

"If I don't do this are you two just going to do it at home with a pair of kitchen shears?" Dr. MacGillicuddy asked.

The cops said nothing and looked away uncomfortably.

Dr. MacGillicuddy sighed in defeat.

"I'll get the local anesthetic." he sighed.

"Oh THANK YOU! You're the best in the whole world!" Good said happily. "You won't regret this we promise."

Dr. MacGillicuddy truly hoped that he didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes I'm sure nothing bad will come of this. After all, nothing bad ever happens in fanfiction. 
> 
> Dr. MacGillicuddy actually said the word "God". He must be pretty upset.  
> I'm sure he feels very bad about it later.


End file.
